Contingency

[The Grand Nudger]

"I don't know" is the only place one can start from, to know.

You think?  From, nothing nothing comes, though.,.I thought?  

We attempt to explain the unknown by reference to the known.  To do otherwise is simply to assert and reassert.

My idea (not a new one) is that the space of the universe is contingent upon a preexisting substance. The substance has always existed. What began was the opening of our vacuum bubble of voided space-time.

Unfortunately you can't get a -rational- idea from an infinite regress, or any reference to non-terminus (reason requires terminus to generate conclusions).  Doesn't mean it isn't true, just that we don't have any means of determining it to be so.  What was the pre-existing substance contigent upon..if it wasn't contigent upon something than there's no reason to think the the universe as it is was either..or more accurately, to do so would be an inconsistent application of reason.  

We can extrapolate backwards forever and reach reasonable approximations with the data we can collect from within the bubble. But the universe unfolded in the forwards direction and we are still putting together that story.

Not currently, we can't.  All of the data within the bubble appears to be limited, fundamentally, to "post bubble" conditions.  Without knowledge of what the conditions were before this there's no reason to assume that the data post-bubble is meaningful with regards to anything pre-bubble, or even that reason holds pre-bubble....for that matter....and all of this assumes that there was a pre-bubble..that there was time-before-time.  It's a black box, at present.